


Throne of Glass baby headcanons

by sarah_bae_maas



Category: Throne of Glass - Fandom, sarah j maas - Fandom
Genre: Next Gen, Other, baby headcanons, future kids, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_bae_maas/pseuds/sarah_bae_maas
Summary: I write these on my tumbr and thought I'd bring them over here! I do them sporadically and will be posting baby head canon specific stuff for Throne of Glass here :)





	1. Rowaelin

  * Rowan would be the most protective husband ever because he sees Aelin but he can’t help but think about Lyria and how he wasn’t there for her omg the tears are real
  *  anyways so Rowan is on it as fuck like Aelin don’t have to do shit like he makes her breakfast in bed helps her get dressed when she’s too big and ties her shoes when she can’t reach her feet anymore. 
  * Aelin Lowkey is annoyed with him 24/7 but she’s also emotional and hormonal as hell and he’s the only one who will put up with her random rampages. 
  * she’s also horny All. The. Time. Rowan also helps with this 😏😏
  * when she goes into labour Rowan is calm and helps her breath and pretty much treats her like she’s a wounded solider to the point where she’s like SHOW SOME EMOTION YOU BASTARD and at this point he freaks out. 
  * so they have a little girl and she’s crying and so is Aelin and so is Rowan but then the healer is like ‘oh no m8’ and Rowan freezes and he thinks there must be something seriously wrong because Aelin is still in serious pain and the healer looks really concerned 
  * and then everyone realises that she’s still giving birth. Yep. They’re having twins. 
  * and at this point Rowan is holding his baby girl and he has to hand her away because holy shit he’s gonna faint. 
  * and then they have a beautiful baby boy too and it’s everything Rowan and Aelin wanted. Their own lil’ family. 
  * So they are like the best little fam ever. 
  * Aelin is the most dedicated mother ever and loves her babies so much. She takes them to the markets around Terrasen so that everyone can see her beautiful (and best dressed) bubs. 
  * every time she sees other babies she’s like ‘that could be your mate. Or that could be your mate’ she’s like Oprah seriously. 
  * (she’s still hormonal and just full of love)
  * especially for her man. Damn seeing him with children before was bad enough but when she sees him with their own kids??? Sees him playing with them and making them giggle??? She’s didn’t realise that she could love him even more. 
  * so their little girl is soooo troublesome even for a baby. Like the type of baby that throws their food away and smirks. So like she’s Aelin 110%. 
  * and their boy has a perpetual frown and it’s so cute. Like can you just imagine his and Rowan’s matching frowns. Aelin loves it and makes it her personal goal to make them collectively smile. 
  * when one of their kids cry during the night the other one always joins in. It happens so often that Aelin freaks out when she doesn’t hear them. It happens one night and she gets so panicked to only realise that Rowan is gone so she quietly goes next door to the babies room and sees Rowan holding both the babies, one in each arm, AND HES SINGING TO THEM IN THE ANCIENT LANGUAGE and tears come to Aelin’s because she never expected to be this happy in a million years.




	2. Manorian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr sarah-bae-maas

  * So pregnant Manon. Terrifying before, unfathomable now.
  * She found out after she goes to ride Abraxos and he starts smelling her all weird like and then refuses to take her flying. She’s like ‘this is your fucking job take me flying you shit’. The next day she realises that she is very late and whoops that’s what happens when you have unprotected sex with a man that you can’t keep your hands off.
  * She’s happy but nervous. She can’t help but think about Asterin and her baby and how she lost it. She stopped the practise of exiling witches who’s witchlings died as soon as she became clan leader, but she’s not nervous about that. She’s nervous about telling Dorian they were going to have a child just to break his heart if it didn’t make it.
  * Dorian finds out its in the most mundane way possible. Like an 'oh yeah I’m pregnant btw’ over dinner.
  * He doesn’t say anything for a good 5 minutes. Just stares at her.
  * Then he starts crying.
  * Then he runs to tell Chaol because this is one of the biggest moments of his life and wait he should probably go talk to Manon first.
  * So Manon is this piece of work complete Bitch to anyone who even dares to come near her while she’s carrying not just the heir to the throne of Adarlan but also the heir to the Blackbeaks. Except for her thirteen of course.
  * Even Dorian was wary of her for a total of 5 minutes before he realised he was being an idiot and went up to her and kissed her harder than he ever had before.
  * Asterin is a blubbering mess when she finds out and is so excited and insists on having a baby shower but Manon is like 'I’m only a few weeks pregnant that is excessive and I’m right thanks see ya’ but then reconsiders when she thinks about what happened to Asterin and why she is so excited and decides that Asterin can do this one thing.
  * As Manon gets bigger it’s gets harder and harder for her to sleep. She’s awake constantly which effects her more than she would like. Eventually her and Dorian find the perfect position to sleep in (her slightly on her side with her arms around him and him being on his back. He also plays with her hair which she denies she like but the girl lives for it seriously).
  * Manon knows that they’re having a girl. There is no question about it. She’s a witchling and her eyes are going to be fully gold just like her mum.
  * Towards the end of her pregnancy her and Dorian start receiving baby gifts from all across Erilea. Dorian happily opens them, storing away what they’ll use (like unnecessarily fashionable baby clothing curtesy of Aelin) and donating the things they don’t want (“why the fuck did they send us a cat?! We don’t need a cat. Feed it to the Wyverns.” “We’re not feeding to the Wyverns my Love I’ll just give it to Nesryn for her family farm.” “If you insist but I bet Abraxos would love it.” “We both know he’s far more likely to become best friends with it darling.”)
  * Dorian is thrilled to be having a baby. He misses having a family and hopes that he’ll be a better father than the King ever was.
  * He’s also a tad nervous because it’s not like he’s had the best father figures to look up to as he grew up. His father was Shit, Chaol’s father was an idiot. He wants to do the best for his child but he doesn’t know what the best is.
  * Manon is fierce when it comes to continuing to be independent despite the fact that she’s pregnant.
  * She’s with her thirteen planning a reconstruction of the wastes when there’s a sharp pain through her abdomen. She tries to ignore it (she’s knows that she has most likely gone into labour and it can fucking wait she’s not due for 2 weeks and she has work to do) but can’t when she starts bleeding. A lot.
  * She’s taken to a healer straight away by Asterin and she’s screaming for Dorian and where the fuck is Elide she said she was going to be there for the birth to help her and the pain is waaaayy to much and she passes out.
  * That’s how Dorian finds her. In a small cottage of the closest healer, any colour to her already pale face gone. Dorian nearly can’t walk in. It looks like she’s dead.
  * But it takes a lot more than that to bring down Manon bloody Blackbeak.
  * When the birth is over and Manon is resting after losing so much blood, Dorian has some time alone with his precious baby girl.
  * She’s colourless except for the rosy redness to her cheeks. Even her hair was as white as the moon. Except when she opens her eyes, Dorian is shocked to see one is startling gold, and the other is a crystalline blue
  * He knows his baby girl is going to be a heartbreaker, but it’s doesn’t matter because he’s never letting any boys near her anyway.
  * everyone is a bit on edge to see how Manon handles being a mother, but like everything she does, she is a total badass at it.
  * She also cries, for the first time in years, when she gets to hold her daughter for the first time. She can’t stop telling how much she loves her and how she’ll always take care of her no matter what.
  * Dorian is a better father than anyone could’ve expected. He takes to it so naturally.
  * Dorian likes to walk her around (never in a stroller he always carries her) and introduce her to his employees, but also to the people of Rifthold. As much as he loves Manon, his people were still a bit nervous about the extremely powerful witch, but somehow their strange little family makes perfect sense to everyone.
  * He got an awful lot of reminders that “your highness, in no way am I trying to impose, but don’t you think it’s time to ask her to marry you?” Ah yes he should really get around to that.
  * When the baby is 8 months old she starts to walk. However, she likes to do it when people aren’t looking so no one really realises she’s doing it. She’s being babysat by her Aunty Nes and Uncle Chaol when she just wanders off without them noticing and manages to get all the way to the Wyvern yard. Chaol freaks out and tells the guard instantly to start looking for her because oh my gods he lost his best friends child.
  * When she’s found she is snuggled up with Abraxos sleeping after her big adventure.
  * Despite the blunder Manon still lets Chaol near her child. As long as another responsible adult is there of course.
  * In his daughters whole first year, she never sleeps away from Dorian. The war only ended a mere year before her birth, and he’s too nervous to let her out of her sight incase something happens.
  * So behold his shock when he comes home to Manon telling her Asterin has taken the Bub for a night and if she has to go one more day without having sex with the love of her life she’s gonna lose it.
  * ALL NIGHT. SERIOUSLY. THAT MAN HAS STAMINA.
  * When there done the sun is coming up and Dorian can’t think of a better time to propose to her.
  * She says yes.




	3. Lysaedion

  * So they both thought they were somewhat prepared for a child because of how they raised Evangeline, who had become like a daughter to them both. (Quick reminder than canonically in EoS Aedion spent a day teaching her to make daisy chains my love)
  * HAHAHAHAHA they weren’t
  * They weren’t really ‘trying’ for a baby when Lysandra got pregnant, but she also wasn’t taking any kind of tonic to stop it from happening.
  * She found out after she had been getting morning sickness and a healer confirmed it for her. She was elated. She knew this was something Aedion wanted and Evangeline would be thrilled to have a baby brother or sister.
  * She told him as soon as she saw him. Well pretty soon afterwards. She had been hormonal lately and a lot of things had been making her ~friendly~ towards her husband, and when she found him he was hot and sweaty after having trained with Rowan and he has shirtless and damn she had to have him right there. They were in the middle of it when she told him. She was up against the wall and her legs were wrapped around him as he was in her and she just blurted it out. He stopped to ask her if she was serious and when she answered yes he went harder than he ever had before. Lys doesn’t do things by half.
  * When Lys tells Aelin they both cried of happiness and hugged for hours. Their men find them like that, snuggled in front of a fire, talking about names and what they’ll need to buy and all that baby stuff. The two women are talking like it’s THEIR child but Aedion finds it endearing.
  * When Aedion told Rowan, Gavriel, Fenrhys and Lorcan he did it all at once to save time. Rowan clapped him on the back in congratulations, Fenrhys made a dirty joke about the conception, Lorcan gave also gave his congrats but in a lot less brotherly way than Rowan and Gavriel… well he cried. Him and Aedion shared a long hug and Gav clasped the back of Aedions neck and told him that he would be the best father a child could dream of. Aedion cried too then. (Fenrhys made a gagging sound, but secretly was holding back tears).
  * Have you ever seen a whole army cheer, dance and get drunk? Well that’s what happened when Aedion told the Bane.
  * Aedion is the most doting father-to-be ever. He makes her breakfast in bed early every day so she doesn’t have to move around, he ties her shoes, he helps her dress, he runs her a bubble bath every night, he wants wants her to be as comfortable as possible while carrying their child. Lys questions it, but he insists saying she’s carrying 'very precious cargo.’
  * She’s very emotional during her pregnancy, which is to be expected. Once Aedion made a joke about the baby coming out as a sea dragon and Lys was so mad she nearly slapped him across the face, all the while sobbing. He made it up to her by making her all her favourite food and begging for her forgiveness (a strip show may also have been involved).
  * Lys has a lot of love for her man. Every time she sees him she kisses him hello and goodbye, as well as randomly kissing his cheek or nose during conversations. Even important ones like the meeting that Aelin and Dorian were having about trade agreements with Rolfe. -When she went into labour they were pretty prepared and it went surprisingly smoothly despite the terrible pain she was in.
  * It was a lil bby girl who looked just like Aedion’s mother. She was so blonde and beautiful with the signature Ashryver eyes. Lys is over the moon of course but she wonders if they’ll ever have a child that looks like her. The original her that she can’t remember.
  * This child is one of the most loved children in the whole of Erilea, with multitudes of loving aunts and uncles.
  * Evangeline takes to her instantly, and when the baby is being introduced to new people Evangeline always chimes in with a 'this is my baby sister.’
  * Between Aedion and Lys that baby never gets put down. Aedion will be ordering people around, sword at his side, looking ferocious as fuck except he has a little bundle that wiggles and squirms around in his arms. Lys will doing whatever and if her baby needs to be fed then she’s going to be fed. If people give her judgy looks for breast feeding in public she’s just like 'bitch I’m giving life don’t test me I will fuck you up.’
  * When the baby is six months old Aedion accidentally drops her while trying to change her and he’s hysterical. He takes her to the healer straight away and there is literally nothing wrong with her and the healer assures him this happens to parents all the time but he still feels guilty.
  * She walks for the first time when she’s 11 months old. Aedion is playing a game where he stands her up and they 'dance’ and he puts her down and turns around to get a drink and when he turns back she’s stumbling towards him, huge smile on her face.
  * Rather than just telling everyone she walked, he made an excuse to get the whole family together and lowkey reenacted what happened AND SHE DID IT AGAIN BECAUSE SHE JUST WANTS TO DANCE WITH HER DAD. Aelin squeals in excitement and Lys scoops up her baby to give her the biggest hug.
  * Gavriel spends as much time with his son and granddaughter as much as possible, wanting to make up for lost time. He absolutely adores her, and thinks she’s the prettiest girl to ever grace his presence. He buys her endless gifts, her favourite being the tiny enchanted flower he found a century before in a land that is beyond even the reach of Wendlyn. She’s three when she gets it, and initially uses it as a night light (when she gets older she realises that it changes colour depending on whether she is safe or not, something that comes in handy when she becomes the spymaster for Terrasen).
  * Neither Lys or Aedion know if she’s a shifter or not, and it’s not until she’s four that they figure out that she is. Lys is tucking her in and was upset that day because her, her child, and Aelin were shopping and people kept thinking that her girl was Aelin’s.
  * It just reminded her that her baby looked nothing at all like her, not that she cares she’s the most beautiful child in the world, but it would just be nice for people to look at them and know that they are mother and daughter. The girl may be young but with her heightened senses she can tell that something is wrong. To make her mum feel better, she clenches her fists and shuts her eyes and tries really really hard and before Lysandra’s eyes her baby girls blonde hair turns the same dark brown as hers.
  * She gasps in surprise and together they run to show Aedion who is already tucked into his own bed, reading a (romance) novel, who’s eyes widen in surprise at his baby girl’s newest hairstyle.
  * From then on she has taken extremes when it comes to her hair colour. Her personal favourite is a navy blue, but she also loves to copy her mothers hair.
  * Every night from when she’s four to when she’s ten Aedion reads her a story every night. He does the voices and actions and she absolutely loves it. Her favourites are anything to do with dragons and wyverns.
  * One time when she’s six they can’t find her or Evangeline anywhere. They are frantic looking for their daughters only to find them locked away in a greenhouse having a tea party. They isn’t mean to cause a fuss, they just didn’t realise that they had to tell someone where to go. When they told Evangeline she should be more responsible she just rolled her eyes and said it wasn’t _her_ idea to have a tea party. She’s far to old and sophisticated for that. She just wanted to make the baby happy.
  * When she’s eight, Aedion has to go deal with a problem with Rowan and doesn’t come back when he supposed to. When he does it’s because Rowan is carrying him over his shoulder, while also trying to heal the alarmingly large gauge on Aedion’s body.
  * Lys freaks the hell out but not as much as their little girl when they sees her dad deathly pale and sprawled for healers to try and save. Unbeknownst to her family she runs up to him and pours every speck of magic into him as she can. This is the moment they realise that she’s inherited fae magic from Aedion’s fae side.
  * She is hellish as a teenager. She has more freedom than any of her family ever had and oh how she abuses it. When she’s 15 she sneaks out of the house regularly to go meet up with a boy, when she’s 16 she gets caught shifting into her father to mess with the Bane. When she’s 17 she shifts into anything she can imagine to scare people, when she’s 18 it’s the last straw when she nearly burns down a house after becoming a dragon and nearly killing two people. Aedion loves her and she loves him, but so much that she doesn’t really listen to his authority. Aedion and Lys decided that if she wants to pull shit like this then whatever. But first she has to do three years of gruelling training with Rowan and Gavriel and then we’ll see what her attitude is like. Between the stoic and loving faes she becomes an unparalleled (and disciplined) warrior.
  * They both constantly worry about her, in their eyes she will always be their baby girl. She’s is perfect though, once her rebellious streak is over she is a loving and devoted to her parents, family, and country (although she never quite looses that mischievousness).




	4. Elorcan

  * They are both thrilled to be parents. Scared shitless but happy all the same.
  * Lorcan may be a fierce Ass warrior, but he has no idea how to take care of children. He has no parents to model himself off. He knows Elide will be a good enough mother to make up for it.
  * Lorcan loves his son so much, and insists on taking him everywhere. The only problem is people also like to steal his child. An excited female (AELIN) or a lonely warrior (FENRYS FOR FUCKS SAKE) will just whisk him away without asking and it infuriates Lorcan. He hates not knowing where his son is. He’ll go to Elide all panicked and she’ll know where the boy is, and he’ll be bitter for the rest of the afternoon because he didn’t know.
  * Elide has a lot to do as a Lady of Perranth, so Lorcan often takes the baby out on adventures with him. The baby is still young and only can say garbled words, and Lorcan has him sitting in a high chair watching him and Rowan train. The baby laughs at the spectacle, and it’s hard for both Lorcan and Rowan to concentrate when they can hear his cute little snickers, but they try to continue on anyway. They stop suddenly though, when the baby’s laughs turn to a long winded continuous ‘Papapapapapapa’ and it’s his first real word. Lorcan’s son just called him Papa. He races to his sons and snatches him up and runs to Elide, hoping his son continues long enough for him to show his wife. They just make it, and Elide cries when she hears it.
  * Elide and Lorcan are playing with him one day, just relaxing in between the huge amounts of meetings they have, when their baby pulls himself up with the table. He had been doing this for a month now and every time he did they oohed and ahhed but this time THIS TIME he takes a tentative step towards his mother, and then another and then another and everyone is cheering and he’s walking to a fro between his parents and it’s just a very good day.
  * When he’s six, Lorcan takes it upon himself to start training him to wield a sword. The boy is still rather little and struggles to keep up sometimes, but he wants to make his father and uncles and aunts proud. He’s small for his age though, and he struggles a little bit. Lorcan is the most patient teacher though, and helps him every step of the way. Rowan constantly asks why he was never like that when they had to train younglings and soldiers in the army.
  * The boy is quite the mischievous devil and goes out of his way to pull pranks on his family members. This includes making Elide think he’s deathly ill (luckly aunty Yrene is there to sooth any fears) making his uncle Fenrys think he’s been stabbed, and tricking his Aunt Aelin into giving him extra cake.
  * He doesn’t have a lot of friends, so by age ten he starts sneaking out to play with the kids in the streets. Orynth was a prosperous city, but all cities had their version of slums. He would run around and play the most inventive games, and with the charm of his mother and the magic from his father, kids would swarm to him. He was their elected leader, and they even made a little flag for themselves. The only problem? His parents would have no idea where he was when he was doing this. It freaked the hell out of everyone, and they combed through the castle and city trying to find him, worried that some extremist fae that had supported Maeve had taken him. You can imagine Lorcan’s surprise when he found his boy rolling around in the mud with the humans, having the time of his life. And you can certainly imagine the revere and slight bit of fear that was in the children when they saw one of Queen Aelin’s high commanders storming towards them. Lorcan has a look of pure fury on his face when he approached his son, but as soon as he was in arms-length he just scooped him up and hugged him.
  * After that, Lorcan insisted that the children he play with simply come to the castle. Where, if they wanted, they could receive free food and baths as well as training, courtesy of Fenrys.
  * The boy was a lot like Lorcan was as a teenager – driven by his dick. At the age of 18, he had well and truly explored himself in every way possible. Elide got Yrene to sneak herbs into his food that would prevent him from catching diseases.
  * He was incredibly loyal to his family, especially his mother. He would do anything to make her proud of him, including making the decision to train in Wendlyn when he was 22 so he could become the best possible solider and protect his family to the best of his ability. Lorcan raged and Elide cried when he told them he planned to go. It would only be for two years, and he would miss them dearly.
  * while he was away, he settled, and Elide was overjoyed. She was always scared about what would happen to Lorcan once she passed, fearing her husband would find a way to join her in the afterlife. Now, she could rest assured that if their child was there with him, then Lorcan would always remain.
  * when he came back he was the most refined yet savage solider. He was clean shaven, his hair short and neat, and he had the posture and composure of a prince. The first time he fought though, Lorcan was cowed by the power his son had accumulated. He was so powerful, in fact, that it drew the attention of Aelin herself, who gave him a chance to show her that not only was he powerful in body, but also in mind.
  * while he was away proving himself to Aelin, Elide got sick. Very sick. Sick to the point that Yrene had to come as fast as she could from Adarlan. He sat by her side all hours of the day, abandoning all his duties so he could be with his mother. He held her frail, mortal hand in his and cried every time she coughed.
  * at one point, both he and Lorcan had to leave, and when Yrene came out she shook her head, and told them there wasn’t much more she could do, and they should probably say their goodbyes.
  * When they came in to see her, Elide had the biggest smile on her face. Both her men burst into tears at the sight, thinking it was the last time they might ever see it. Luckily for them all, Elide pulled through, and her son decided to decline any further offers from Aelin. One day, he would be the Lord of Perranth, and he needed to start staying home and acting like it.




	5. Fenrys x Asterin

  * It wasn’t intentional. She didn’t mean to get pregnant, yet here she was, Yrene smiling at her and her hands clutched to her stomach. She wasn’t even here for any tests. She was here for lunch with a pretty mortal girl.
  * She walked home slowly. She disregarded calls of her name. She didn’t stop until she was knocking on Fenrys’ office door. She hadn’t even told him she was going to be in Terrasen. When he opened the door, he looked angry and tired. Upon seeing her, his face changed to a gentle smile and a lightness that only comes from a happy surprise.
  * Asterin, always the poised one, blurted it out without even thinking.
  * The humans Fenrys had been conferring with walked out meek and red faced.
  * Fenrys looked like a blubbering fish. He pulled her into the room, shutting the door behind them, muttering _what are the chances_. He turned to her.
  * “Do you want this, Asterin?”
  * Her heart ached as she answered, “yes.”
  * The first thing to organize was where they’ll live. Asterin lived between Adarlan and the Wastes, and Fenrys had taken residence as one of Aelin’s generals in Terrasen. They were also not officially a couple, not like Dorian and Manon who had publicly professed their love for one another, more of a casual but consistent flirtation. When it came to her pregnancy though, and where she’ll stay for its duration, there was no other option in her mind than with Manon and the Thirteen. She needed to be surrounded by witches while waiting for her witchling to come, and especially Manon, the leader of her coven. She told Fenrys this, and also told him there is no room for debate on the topic. He agreed, and escorted her all the way to Adarlan (or more accurately, held on for dear life while they flew there on her wyvern).
  * Her pregnancy was not a hard one. It was easier than her first, not as much sickness, not as much drowsiness, and it scared her. She did the hard yards the first time, and her witchling was still stillborn. She voiced her concern to Fenrys. She had told him vague details about the scar marring her stomach, but never went into the true depth of the story. She did in her second trimester, when he found her in her chamber shaking and crying while looking at her scars. Her bloating belly had started to distort them, the purple lines like a marker through them, and she was worried it was a bad omen. He kissed away her fears and held her for hours, telling her the story of his and his twin’s birth to distract her. And when she was calm enough, he summoned the people who could truly set her at peace, her coven. Manon, not nearly as fearsome when cuddling her second, cooed over Asterin lovingly with the Shadows and Sorrel. Fenrys let them be, kissing her goodbye.
  * It was hard for Fenrys, extremely so, having his pregnant… lover? Partner? Neither word seemed right… so far away from him. And although he was a dutiful male who loved working and living under Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, he couldn’t be away from his child. With a bag only packed with the essentials, he walked into the office of Aelin and Rowan and resigned from his position. He never looked back.
  * When he presented himself at the palace doors in Adarlan the servants let him in. He hadn’t told Asterin what he was going to do, and he hoped she didn’t think he was being an overbearing, territorial fae male. Her rooms were temporarily next to the King and Manon’s, so when he ran into the Crochan queen and she scented his nerves, she put a watch of witches outside Asterin’s door. “It is of no offense to you, Fenrys. But Asterin and her Witchling will always be my first priority, and I know how volatile fae tempers are.” He did take offense – he would _never_ – but he knew it was coming from a place of love, so he let it go.
  * When Asterin heard he planned to stay, she smiled while biting her lip, and then invited him straight into her bed, where he stayed with her unless it was to get food or dote on her every need.
  * It was a week before she was due that she confronted him on something. “What are we, Fenrys? I can’t bring our witchling into the world when it’s so uncertain.” They were walking through the markets, something Yrene had encouraged but somewhat went against the witch tradition of staying confined and protected during a pregnancy, trying to get some air. They were also buying things (Fenrys may have gone overboard on clothing and toys but he didn’t care, this was his child after all) and the question stopped Fenrys dead in his tracks. It was something he had been wondering but hadn’t had enough strength to ask. Because fuck he was scared. He was scared that his baby would be born and whisked away from him to be with the witches, and Asterin wasn’t his wife, her loyalty wasn’t necessarily first and foremost to him.
  * He told Asterin the few things he knew for sure. He knew he wanted to be with her and the baby and raise it to be strong and fierce. He knew he wanted to stay in Adarlan with her and the child. He knew one other thing.
  * He clasped their hands together and knelt at her feet, resting his forehead on her belly. “I love you, Asterin Blackbeak.” And then there was the thing he was the most unsure of. “Do you love me?”
  * Her breathing was shaky. She slowly removed her hands from his. When he looked up, her eyes were wide, and she was shaking her head no.
  * She left him on the ground and returned home. He didn’t move for hours.
  * Asterin went straight to Manon, interrupting something important but she didn’t know what. She was hyperventilating. She was quaking. She could barely speak when Manon rushed her away and demanded to know what was wrong.
  * Asterin had made a grave mistake. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Fenrys, for crying out loud the fae male had wormed his way into every crevice of her body. All she thought about was him, all she wanted was him and their witchling, and he made her forget everything.
  * Everything.
  * Including her first baby. Including her man and her cabin.
  * She wasn’t ready to forget. She wasn’t ready for this new life that had been thrust upon her. She didn’t know how to be a mother. She didn’t know how to be a wife or anything like it.
  * She told Manon this, and her friend held her and comforted her.
  * It was nightfall when Fenrys returned to the castle. He was quiet when he entered the room. He knew Asterin was still awake, and he cowered before her.
  * “Would you like me to leave?”
  * “No,” she whimpered.
  * He saw her pain, and its twin was mirrored in him. He climbed into the bed next to her, not quite touching.
  * “It’s okay that you don’t love me. I never expected you to. I will stay here in the castle and we will raise this baby together. You deserve a great love, Asterin Blackbeak, and when you find the person that makes your heart sing I will support you, and I will love you and be at your side only as a friend.”
  * His words made her cry harder. She lightly slapped at his chest, and turned until she was nestled into his side.  Her belly made it hard, but he knew just how to adjust her to make her comfortable.
  * “I’ve already had a great love of my life,” she told him. “And you make me forget the pain of losing him and our baby. You make me feel things I haven’t before, and it terrifies me. I didn’t shake my head no because I don’t love you, I did so because I’m not ready to face the feelings I have for you. I thought I was, and I’m not. I’m sorry.”
  * He kissed her cheek. “I’ll wait for you, Asterin.”
  * And that he did.
  * Their witchling was born two weeks later as the sun broke over the earth and the stars winked away. She was alive, and so beautiful, and had Fenrys gorgeous brown skin and Asterin’s eyes. She was born a child of the Wastes, but Fenrys also trained her in the way of the fae.
  * He stayed with Asterin, they shared a chamber, but it was not until their witchling’s first birthday that Asterin confessed her love for him. He was singing to their witchling and dancing with her on his hip, cake in his other hand. He would eat a bite, she would growl, and then yank some from his hands. It was sweet and beautiful and Asterin wasn’t thinking when she walked up and kissed him, whispering her eternal love for him against his cake-smeared lips.




End file.
